Secrets – 1977
Director
Paul Wendkos

Writer
James S. Henerson

Cast
Susan Blakely, Roy Thinnes,Joanne Linville

Review by Wayne Malin

A daring (for its time) TV movie,

This was an ABC TV movie about a married woman (Susan Blakely) who is a nymphomaniac. This was considered very extreme for its time. Some ABC affiliates banned the movie and many people thought that this subject matter shouldn’t be presented on TV at all. It seems silly almost 30 years later.

I was 15 when I saw this. I had no idea what a nymphomaniac was but this movie explained it in a very subdued way. They didn’t push the subject matter in your face and it was treated very carefully. There was nothing graphic shown in the film at all–it was all well within the bounds of 1970s TV.

Blakely was very good in the title role. Also Andrew Stevens has a small role. This movie does have her understanding why she is like that and being “cured” at the end. That involved a pretty silly sequence having her talk to her dead mother. Still it’s a very good. Yet another TV movie that is impossible to see today. I wish we had a network that would show these films.